13 January 2020

[elflocks]

My primary pastime for the past week has been coughing. I spent days and days inside, wary of taxing my vulnerable immune system. I missed most of the shocking warm spell, though it’s forecast to have a few more days before the snows come. I finally ventured out yesterday, and then again today. Today I went to the used bookstore and got some back issues of Parabola magazine I’ve eyeballed for a while (Memory and Forgetting, Mask and Metaphor, Woman, War, Dreams and Seeing), a treat for myself if I’ll be inside recuperating from surgery if all goes to plan at the end of the month. And I went to the library, to get Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler (which was not available at that branch), and Ms Ice Sandwich by Mieko Kawakami (which wasn’t on the shelf where the catalog said it’d be), and since my plans were thwarted I instead I got two impulse checkouts, The Scarlet Gang of Asakusa by Yasunari Kawabata (I didn’t remember seeing that on the shelf with the rest of his work before) and stories by Lu Hsun (an attractive edition printed in China, which I saw by chance, looking for something else - I had searched the catalog for him a good while ago, months, wanting to read A Madman’s Diary, but the catalog gave no results, I reckon I was spelling the name Xun, so I was pleased I chanced upon this volume). The boy saw the Lu Hsun stories when I came home and laughed, spoke of them being forced on students. He spoke of the literature, Chinese and Western, he learned on, and as I got up to begin cooking he mentioned Gu Cheng, and I was delighted by coincidence, because I had been looking at the two books of poetry by him on the shelf and considered getting them because I liked his photos. The boy spoke of the madness, chasing his wife with an ax, committing suicide, I spoke of the prevalence of madness, ill health, and suicide among poets, and went on to chop vegetables for supper. Going to read to try not to dread waking up early for the doctor on Thursday, literature fosters bravery, or something like it!